North Chennai wakes up to see rain water inside house
CHENNAI: Residents of North Chennai woke up to see water entering their houses after just the second spell of monsoon rain on Tuesday. They blamed Greater Chennai Corporation for waterlogging.
The Ganesapuram subway, which is notorious for being submerged, was inundated this time too and traffic was closed. The other areas in its surroundings also were flooded. This caused inconvenience to office-goers who had to take a detour to reach other parts of the city. Residents also blamed officials for doing nothing to prevent floods though it is a recurrent problem here.
“We have kids at home, as small as an year old. It was around 3.30 am. We were sleeping on the floor and felt something wet. When we woke up and turned on the lights, rain water was gushing into our house. We didn’t know what to do. We made the children to sit in chairs and waited until morning. After rain stopped, we tried to drain water from the house,” said Anand Babu, a resident in Second Block at Sathya Moorthy Nagar.
“Had they desilted the storm water drains (SWDs) we wouldn’t have faced this problem. But, It seems the Chennai Corporation, as usual, turned a blind eye to pleas of North Chennai residents. Thankfully, the rain stopped and water receded a bit,” he said.
The entire Sathyamoorthy Nagar main road was inundated with rain water and sewage, including housing board tenements. “The government didn’t take any precautionary measures. Adults and children spent the entire night moving to the top floors and sitting there. This is the condition after rain that lasted just three hours or so. Imagine what would have happened if it had poured throughout the day,” said N Elango, a resident in ward 46.
All the cross streets and most of the main roads at Mahakavi Bharati Nagar were flooded. Houses were surrounded by floodwater. Before the rain, Chennai Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board officials didn’t clean the underground sewage lines, they said, leaving toilets in most houses brimming with sewage. After the rain, things worsened. However, in-charge officers for relief and supervision for north-east monsoon in Zone-4 refused to comment.